Wednesday, March 7, 2012

NEW THEOLOGICAL POSITION OF SADDLEBACK CHURCH CONCERNING ISLAM

By now you’re likely aware of Rick Warren builds bridge to Muslims by veteran journalist Jim Hinch, which ran in the Orange Country Register. Hinch told us that back in December that Rick Warren began “an effort to heal divisions between evangelical Christians and Muslims.”

One of the ways Hinch said Warren would do this is:

by partnering with Southern California mosques and proposing a set of theological principles that includes acknowledging that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

The effort, informally dubbed King’s Way, caps years of outreach between Warren and Muslims. (Online source)

Apprising Ministries began our coverage of this in Rick Warren, Islam, And Jim Hinch when Warren accused Hinch of putting out an article with “multiple errors.” I also shared Hinch’s defense that came from my discussion with him.

Then I would write Apprising Ministries Exclusive On Rick Warren, Jim Hinch, And Islam after I contacted Hinch again concerning how I might obtain a copy of the King’s Way because it hasn’t been published anywhere.

He was kind enough to share the relevant portion concerning what it says about God. Then Ed Stetzer of the SBC’s Lifeway Research publishing arm decided to take a swipe at ministries like this and come to Warren’s defense.

1 comment:

Ed Stetzer closed comments for his report, so I'm sharing this and posting my comments here, if I may. I'm not attacking Rick Warren, but we cannot treat him as a "anonymous Christian", since he is "the pastor of America" and what he says is taken as authorative by many, many Christians and so, they might be, either edified or misled by his work and comments. We all must be very careful when quoting Scripture in order not to do Eisegesis insted of Exegesis.

In the interview:

"QUESTION: Why do you think people who call themselves Christians sometimes say the most hateful things about Muslims?

WARREN: Well, some of those folks probably aren't really Christians. 1 John 4:20 says, 'If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.'"

What Warren is stating in the paragraph above, is that if someone says something hateful about Muslims, then he or she is not a Christian. I almost could agree with him on that, if had not quoted 1 John 4:20, which he uses to say Muslims are our brothers and that John is saying that if we do not love our brother (the Muslims), then we do not love God. This passage is talking about our brothers, as the Jamieson, Fausset, Brown Commentary says: "If we do not love the brethren, the visible representatives of God, how can we love God, the invisible One, whose children they are?" So what Warren said, paraphrasing him, was something like "if you do not love your brother Muslim, you don't know God, and you are not a Christian", but worst, with this he is saying we both believe in the same God, since we both are children of God. He would've been better off with Christians if he'd have quoted Mathew 5:44, but then, he would have "wronged" his Muslim brothers.

So, if he didn't say Muslims worshiped the same God Christians do, now he said both are children of God, and so, both have then, the same God. That's what I see here.